


Okay, I've got you

by earlgreytea68



Series: Schrodingerverse [3]
Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: COVID-19, Coronavirus, M/M, Quarantine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23975251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: Tennyson's pretty smart. Pete feels like he can't take all the credit.
Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Series: Schrodingerverse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687264
Comments: 46
Kudos: 116





	Okay, I've got you

**Author's Note:**

> I keep thinking I should hold this stuff back or I won't have anything to post when Culmination is over but I have this fantasy that maybe these quarantine stories will seem quaint soon??? (hahahaha) Anyway, here's another quarantine story.

It’s hard sometimes – it’s hard _all_ the time – for Pete to understand how he made Tennyson. Someone’s gotta be wrong about how biology works or whatever, because there’s just no way that somehow Pete Wentz made _this kid_. He’s too extraordinary, too amazing, too remarkable. Pete watches him in awe, and believes in magic, the true blue kind, the undeniable kind, the kind he knows is in the world because he encountered it once before, when a redhead in an argyle sweater opened his pornographic lips and started singing to him. Pete Wentz has known magic is real for a really long time.

The first time Tennyson was handed to Pete, when he was an impossibly tiny new human screaming his head off about the state of the world, red and wrinkly and barely functioning, an alien thrust onto a new planet and unsure if it would even be safe to breathe – that first time, Pete looked at Tennyson and Tennyson looked at him and stopped crying. He tried really hard to focus with his tiny eyes, and Pete breathed, “Hey, kid. I’ve got you now. It’s going to be okay.”

And he’s been saying it ever since. _I’ve got you now. It’s going to be okay_.

Patrick doesn’t think Tennyson is magic. Which isn’t to say that Patrick doesn’t love him, because Pete knows Patrick adores Tennyson, Pete knows he can’t believe how lucky he is that Patrick loves Tennyson so wholly, so completely unconditionally, so devotedly. Pete sees Patrick with Tennyson, that patient thoughtfulness he has always had with him, ever since the first time Pete forced Patrick to hold him, Patrick protesting that the baby was too breakable for him, and Pete knows Patrick thinks the world of Tennyson. But he doesn’t think Tennyson’s magic because he says Tennyson’s just like Pete. Pete doesn’t see it, doesn’t understand the alchemy that turned him into something so much better, but Patrick says it so frequently, so fond and indulgent, his fingers caught in the hair on the nape of Pete’s neck, his breath a warm huff against Pete’s ear. _He’s so you_ , Patrick says, amused, and Pete tries to imagine how Patrick can possibly view him as resembling anything as incredible as Tennyson. Patrick is sorely mistaken.

But Patrick says it. Over and over. And he says it on Day Forty of the Quarantine.

Because Day Forty of the Quarantine is when Tennyson looks up from Animal Crossing to say, “I’ve got a really good idea.”

Pete feels completely out of good ideas. He’s sprawled on the beanbag chair he purportedly bought for Tennyson, considering the wisdom of joining TikTok. “Should I join TikTok?” he muses to Tennyson.

“No, because I’d have to make all the videos for you,” Tennyson replies immediately.

“Fair,” Pete allows. “Okay, tell me your good idea.”

“We should get a dog!”

Pete blinks at the ceiling, and then turns his head slowly to gaze at his brilliant son.

“It’s a good idea, right?” Tennyson asks, beaming.

“It’s _genius_ ,” Pete agrees.

***

He and Tennyson immediately pull over the tablet Tennyson’s theoretically supposed to be doing homework on – fuck homework, Pete can’t believe he makes his kid do so much _learning_ every day, then again, Pete’s goal was always to miss as much school as possible, so he’s probably not the best role model – and they scroll through the dogs available at the local shelters. They love all of them, of course.

“Maybe we can just get all of them,” Tennyson suggests seriously.

“I don’t think Patrick will go for, like, a dozen dogs moving in,” Pete replies.

“Is he going to agree to one dog?” Tennyson gives Pete a look.

“What’s that look for?”

“This is your job,” Tennyson explains, going back to the tablet.

“My job? What’s my job?”

“Getting Patrick to understand how awesome our ideas are.”

“That’s my job?”

“Uh-huh. You’re pretty good at it.”

“I mean,” says Pete, instinctively offended, “if it’s my job, I’d like to say I’m fucking stellar at it, okay?”

“You’re decent,” Tennyson says. “You’re like a five out of ten.”

“I’m _what_?” screeches Pete.

Tennyson shrugs.

“I am _at least_ an eight out of ten,” Pete insists.

“You couldn’t get him to go for the outdoor elevator system we were building,” Tennyson points out.

“To be fair, I think he doesn’t have anything against an elevator so much as the two of _us_ building the elevator. We’re not engineers.”

Tennyson shrugs again, like Pete’s inability to convince Patrick they should have a ramshackle fake elevator system on the side of their house is a sign of paternal failure.

“He didn’t want us to _die_ ,” Pete adds. “That was his concern.”

“Well, a dog won’t kill us. Look at her little face.” Tennyson points at one of the little dog faces on the screen.

Pete doesn’t need to look at her little face. Pete knows it’s going to break his heart. He says, “Don’t worry about Patrick, I’ll handle Patrick.”

***

Pete has been handling Patrick for basically twenty years at this point. He feels like he’s gotten worse at it. Mostly because Patrick is smart enough to know when he’s being handled now. In the beginning, he was much easier to mold and manipulate, all it took was a certain pretty look from Pete (or a well-thrown punch, like, it could be a toss-up for Patrick some days). Now, when Pete tosses Patrick pretty looks, Patrick’s onto him.

“Hmm,” Patrick says, “what’s that look for?” He throws the covers back and slides into bed.

“Huh? What? No look,” says Pete, trying really hard not to make his face _look_.

“I know that look,” Patrick says.

“There’s no look,” Pete insists.

“Tell me,” says Patrick. He pulls the covers up to his chin like a little kid as he turns to face Pete.

“That’s what I’m telling you: There’s no look.”

Patrick smiles at him. “You are the most stubborn person.”

“Look who’s _talking_ ,” protests Pete.

Patrick just keeps smiling at him.

Pete blurts out, “Okay, Tennyson and I have an idea.”

Patrick looks indulgent. “Of course you do.”

“Don’t gloat,” Pete whines.

“I’m not gloating. Tell me this idea.”

“It’s an awesome idea.”

“You and Tennyson always have awesome ideas.”

Pete pauses. He looks at Patrick’s completely innocent, impassive face. And he says, “Hang on. Are you _handling_ me?”

Patrick’s expression is unblinking. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, my _God_ ,” says Pete, and sits up in bed. “You’re _handling_ me.”

“I’m not handling you,” Patrick denies. “You’re impossible to handle. You do whatever crazy idea gets stuck in your head and I am utterly powerless ever to influence you one way or another—”

“You can’t even say it with a straight face!” Pete accuses.

It’s true. Patrick dissolves into giggles.

Which means Pete can’t help the fact that he surges forward to kiss him. It’s a good kiss. It kisses the giggles out of Patrick, until it’s a serious kiss and Pete is sprawled on top of Patrick, blankets tangled between them, trading lazily wet kisses back and forth.

“How dare you handle me when I’m handling you?” Pete murmurs into the kisses.

“That’s what she said,” says Patrick.

Pete smiles against Patrick’s mouth. “I love you a lot.”

“I know.” Patrick tugs at Pete’s bottom lip with his teeth, like a little em-dash at the end of the kiss, a punctuation mark to indicate a break in the action that will shortly resume. He says, “I love you, too. Tell me about this idea.”

“We should get a dog,” says Pete.

“Oh,” says Patrick immediately. “Yeah. That _is_ an awesome idea.”

Pete blinks. “Really?”

“You thought I needed to be handled for that? I love dogs.”

Pete realizes his miscalculation: He was indeed handling Patrick for the wrong question, oops. “Okay, what if we get, like, a _dozen_ dogs?”

“No,” says Patrick. “Let’s make out some more.”

It’s a good result, Pete thinks. “Okay.”

***

The dog’s name is Bella.

Pete’s not crazy for her name but he’s crazy for _her_ : for her mismatched eyes and floppy ears and too-big-for-her-body paws. She’s a mutt through-and-through, and it’s love at first sight. Tennyson is _obsessed_. He and Pete send away for a DNA test so they can figure out where Bella came to them from, and in the meantime they make elaborate guesses, do detailed homework on dog breeds. Tennyson’s supposed to be doing a research project, and Pete thinks “canine DNA” is as good a topic as any.

“Is this research project just Google Image search results that you think look like Bella?” Patrick asks from the kitchen, where he’s making a fancy dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches.

“It’s a global pandemic, Patrick,” Tennyson says wisely. “Nobody expects me to do too much for this research project.”

Patrick gives Pete A Look. Not a handling sort of look. Another sort of look.

“What’s that look?” Pete asks, affronted, filling their glasses with water for dinner.

“Who told him nobody expects much from schoolwork during a global pandemic?”

Pete told him that, many, many times, to excuse them having to spend one more second doing remote learning. He says, “He’s a smart kid, it’s common sense.”

“Uh-huh,” says Patrick.

Bella comes into the kitchen and Pete retrieves a treat and says, “Sit, sit,” and then rewards her exorbitantly when she figures it out, with the treat and a full-on belly rub. “Bella-rella,” Pete says, “I still think we need a better name for you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with her name,” Patrick says, putting the sandwiches on the table. “Yo, Proust, time to eat!”

“Proust wasn’t a poet,” Pete tells Patrick from the floor where he’s still crouched next to Bella, as Tennyson thunders toward the table.

“He was close enough,” Patrick says. “Come along, Marcel, wash your hands.” He gives Tennyson a little nudge toward the sink.

“Marcel’s a cool name,” Tennyson suggests, and starts singing the refrain of _Hum Hallelujah_ , because it’s his hand-washing song.

“If your father had his way, he’d name Bella The Lady of Shalott or some fucking thing,” remarks Patrick, sitting at the table.

“Oh, Lunchbox, that is a _perfect_ name,” Pete exclaims.

Patrick shakes his head. “See, there is just so much evidence that you shouldn’t be allowed to _name_ things.”

“ _Your mom_ shouldn’t have been allowed to name things,” says Pete, which is nonsensical, because Patrick’s name is perfect, but Pete can’t think of another comeback.

Patrick lifts his eyebrows at him and says, “Come eat, Peter.”

Pete gets up and sits next to Patrick and says earnestly, “I really love your name, Tricky,” and whispers ticklish kisses over Patrick’s ear until he giggles and squirms away and Tennyson says, “Gross, you two are _super_ gross.”

***

Bella sleeps with Tennyson.

That’s as it should be. Absolutely. Pete is not jealous that the dog sleeps with his nine-year-old son, like, that would be _ridiculous_ of him.

“You get to sleep with me,” Patrick soothes him, “that’s way better,” and gives him a leisurely blowjob just to prove it.

It’s a persuasive argument.

***

Bella is, according to the best guesses of the animal shelter, six years old. She had several litters of puppies before being spayed. Tennyson speculates a lot about the Bella puppies that might be out there in the world.

“We might run across them _without even knowing it_ ,” Tennyson enthuses. “They could cross the street in front of us!”

“We, like, don’t go out in the world anymore,” Pete reminds him, although they do, now that they have Bella. They take long rambling walks around the neighborhood, masks dutifully in place. Pete never gave much thought to the neighborhood before this. It was nice, had been his primary thought when he chose the house. Now everyone’s stuck at home and walking around a lot and Pete wonders if he’s becoming friends with the neighbors.

“Am I becoming friends with the neighbors?” he asks Patrick from bed.

Patrick is brushing his teeth, so the _no_ he shouts from the bathroom is muffled.

Pete is offended. “I think I am.”

Patrick comes into the bedroom, shutting the light off in the bathroom. “What have you said to the neighbors?”

“I, like, nod my head at them when we pass on opposite sides of the street. It’s kind of a…’sup?” Pete demonstrates for Patrick’s benefit.

Patrick looks very serious as he gets into bed. “Nope,” he says, and shuts the bedside lamp off. “Not a friendship.”

“Not every friendship is like _ours_ , Patrick,” Pete informs him, cuddling up close to him.

“I fucking hope not,” Patrick says around a mouthful of Pete’s hair; Patrick is always complaining about Pete’s hair getting in his mouth in bed.

“Tennyson thinks a lot about Bella’s puppies,” says Pete.

Patrick tenses underneath him. “Hang on, you didn’t tell me she was pregnant.”

Pete snorts. “She’s not. Her previous puppies that she had before arriving here. I don’t know. He wonders where they are and stuff.”

“Because Tennyson is like you,” Patrick replies, “and he would have a thousand dogs in this house if I agreed to it.”

“A hundred and one,” Pete murmurs, as Patrick strokes his hand through his hair. It’s a soothing motion, and it should put Pete to sleep, but Patrick dozes off first, his hand stilling, his breaths deepening, and Pete doesn’t mean to wake him up, he really doesn’t, but he suddenly blurts out, “Do you think he wishes he had a thousand brothers and sisters?”

Patrick jerks awake under him, says sleepily, “What? Who?”

“Do you think Tennyson wishes he had more than us?”

“No,” Patrick says definitively. “I think Tennyson likes who he’s got.”

“Yeah?” Pete asks, small and needy, just to hear the verification.

“Yeah,” comes the verification.

Pete turns his face into Patrick’s chest. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“Mmm,” Patrick mumbles, clearly already drifting back to sleep. “You’re a good dad. Don’t worry about it.”

Pete can never turn off worrying, though, that’s the thing. He waits until Patrick’s in a deeper sleep, and then he creeps out of bed, down the hall to Tennyson’s room. He cracks open the door. There’s a lamp that flings constellations all over Tennyson’s ceiling, and by the light of it Pete can see Tennyson starfished over his bed. Bella is curled up in the space between the angles of Tennyson’s body and the wall, her head on Tennyson’s hip. She lifts it up to look at him curiously when he invades the room.

Tennyson sleeps on, beloved and dear, his breaths the loudest sound in Pete’s life. When Tennyson was a baby, Pete used to poke his head into the nursery door and listen to those breaths for reassurance. _It’s okay, kid_ , he would think. _I’ve got you_. And _You will always have me_.

And, against every odd, Tennyson survived his infancy, his babyhood, his toddlerhood. Pete documented every first and held multiple birthday parties and was amazed every year that he’d kept his child alive again for another rotation around the sun. And that child turned out to be _Tennyson_ , like, Pete doesn’t take a lot of credit for that but maybe Patrick’s kind of right and he turned out not to be all that bad at this dad stuff.

Pete leaves Tennyson sound asleep, Bella keeping watch, and goes back to bed with Patrick.

***

“Hey,” says Patrick seriously, and sits down in front of Pete.

Pete is playing Animal Crossing. Badly. His island is way worse than Tennyson’s. He looks up at Patrick and says, “Yo,” to indicate that Patrick should continue speaking.

Outside, in the yard, Tennyson shrieks with joy as he chases Bella.

Patrick says, “What you said last night.”

Pete frowns. “When?”

“Tennyson’s always going to want more.”

“Oh,” Pete realizes. “When I said _that_.”

“Yes. I was sleeping, when you asked the question. I want to give a more complete answer.”

“It’s okay,” says Pete, shaking his head. “You know how I am, at night all the little demons in my head come out to whisper at me and—”

“Right, I know how you are, which is why I want to talk about this, because those demons of your insomnia are always my biggest enemies, they’re like the big boss in the videogame of our life, I’ve got to come equipped to defeat them, I can’t do it half-asleep. So let me do this.”

“Okay,” Pete says, a little dazed.

“Tennyson’s always going to want more. He’s your kid. He’s so you. I know that you can’t see that – that you think it’s some kind of figment of my imagination – but you’re wrong and I’m right, okay? He’s _so very you_. He’s all the best parts of you and he’s also all the worst parts of you and thank God, because what a lucky kid, right? If he was only half of you, I’d be sad for him. But he’s all of you, every absurd and ridiculous thing you are, which is why you’ve got to know that he’s always going to want _more_. The way _you_ always want more. The way I’ve never seen you satisfied. You can get what you want, but it’s never enough, right?”

Pete’s lips twitch with displeasure. “I don’t know that that’s a _good_ thing—”

“It is. I didn’t say it was the same as being _happy_. I’ve seen you happy. You’re happy now. I _can_ tell those things, you know. But it doesn’t mean you’re satisfied. You’re happy now but you still want more: more for Tennyson, more for me.”

“Well, I mean, it’s a very basic ‘more,’ Patrick, like, I’d like us to be able to leave the house again.”

“It’s still more,” Patrick points out. “So anyway, when you ask me if I think Tennyson wants a lot of siblings, like, sure.” Patrick shrugs like that’s nothing. “I’m sure he does. Because Tennyson’s you and he _wants_ , always more, always. But that doesn’t mean he’s not happy. That just means that his appetite for life is _voracious_ and I cannot wait to see him tackle it. Because I had a front-row seat the first time a Wentz conquered the world and it was a pretty fucking great ride.”

Pete stares at Patrick. He feels very dangerously close to tears, and that’s ridiculous. “ _Patrick_ ,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“You’re a good dad,” Patrick continues stubbornly. “I’ve watched you, for almost ten years now, be a really good dad. There is so goddamn much to worry about right now, I get that, so tell your insomnia demons there’s a global pandemic going on that they can freak out about, because you and your awesomeness as a dad should be off-limits. Of all the things to worry about, that isn’t one of them.”

Tennyson suddenly barrels into the room, followed by a joyous barking Bella, and collides with the couch, heedless of any moment that Pete was in the middle of that didn’t involve his presence.

“Dad!” Tennyson exclaims. “You know what I think? I think Bella wants to go _swimming_!”

Pete is too dazed to respond, too caught up in Patrick’s speech still. He looks blankly at his kid.

Patrick says, “Does she need a doggy lifejacket?”

“Patrick,” Tennyson chides him good-naturedly, “she’s a dog! She’ll doggy-paddle!”

“They definitely sell dog lifejackets,” Patrick says. “Those have got to be for _something_.”

“If you’re in the _ocean_ ,” Tennyson says. “They’re for, like, if you go out on a boat for something.”

“Tell me,” says Patrick, “is there anything you don’t know?”

Tennyson beams at him sunnily. “Nope,” he proclaims. “I’m a Wentz.” And then he turns his smile on Pete.

***

Pete feels like there’s a lot he doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know how he ended up with a kid as great as Tennyson.

He doesn’t know how he ended up with a Patrick, either.

He doesn’t know how the disaster human he’s always been ended up with _any_ of this.

And he doesn’t know how Tennyson doesn’t realize how little Pete knows.

He feels like he needs to be honest with Tennyson about that, as he tucks him into bed. Tennyson used to grumble nightly about being tucked into bed but he’s stopped doing that during the quarantine, and that’s another thing for Pete’s brain to worry about, but at the same time it’s nice to still feel a little needed. Bella jumps up onto the bed with Tennyson and Pete says, “You know,” and then stops.

Tennyson is scratching behind Bella’s ears while her tail thumps happily on the mattress. He looks at Pete expectantly. “What?”

“I don’t know everything.” It sounds like a stupid thing to say out loud.

Tennyson confirms it. “Yeah, I know. You are really bad at school, Dad.”

“I’m not…” He can’t even deny that. “Okay, yeah, I’m really bad at school, fourth grade is fucking _hard_ , man, I respect you for going through it.”

Tennyson grins at him and then says seriously, “You are really good at lots of other things, Dad. Don’t worry about it.”

It’s a gesture so similar to something Patrick would do, words Tennyson has probably overheard Patrick say so often that he’s parroting them now – it stops Pete’s heart. He stands and stare down at this kid that yeah, he made…and Patrick _helped_.

Pete kisses the top of his head and murmurs, “You’re okay, kid. I’ve got you,” exactly the way he used to when Tennyson was a baby.

Tennyson says, “I know,” which he never did when he was a baby because he didn’t know words yet. But Pete’s glad to finally get the confirmation, a decade later, that Tennyson knew that all along.

***

The grocery delivery contained ice cream, and Patrick’s raiding it on the couch when Pete comes downstairs. He sits next to him and grabs a spoon to steal from Patrick’s bowl.

“What are we watching?” he asks.

“I think it’s the _Trolls_ movie,” says Patrick.

“Come on, the kid’s in bed, we should break out the porn,” Pete banters.

Patrick snorts and keeps watching the _Trolls_ movie.

Pete looks at him and says, “Am I a know-it-all?”

“Insufferable,” Patrick answers without taking his eyes off the movie.

“Really?” says Pete, surprised.

“‘Patrick, that’s not how you should be standing, don’t you know anything about TikTok?’” says Patrick, in what Pete supposes is mimicry of him.

“Well, you weren’t even in the frame!” Pete protests. “That’s not being a know-it-all!”

Patrick looks at him quizzically. “Relax, I love you, know-it-all or not.” He leans forward to brush a kiss over Pete’s temple.

“I’m just saying: I know _nothing_.”

“You seemed like you knew a lot when we were kids.” Patrick shrugs. “And honestly, you kinda did.”

“I was making all of that up.”

“Well, it was good improv, Wentz.” Patrick ducks forward to kiss him again, this time behind his ear. “You were a good kid to know.”

Pete thinks of the kid sleeping upstairs right now. And Pete says, because Patrick’s never the one who is needy out loud, Patrick is always the one who covers up vulnerability with brash sarcasm, and Pete tries to do that, too, but Pete feels like he doesn’t have the _knack_ – or Patrick doesn’t let him have the knack – for hiding. Pete feels like Patrick hasn’t let him hide, not since the day they met; on that day Patrick looked at Pete and saw _Pete_ and Pete’s never entirely recovered. But it goes both ways and a lot of the time Pete’s not sure he makes that clear to Patrick, that he sees him, too, all the best and all the worst, the way Patrick said. Pete’s loud and demanding and will take up all the space in a relationship, all the space on a stage, and Patrick’s genial enough to let him do it but Pete thinks Patrick’s subconsciously trusting Pete to never forget the importance of Patrick’s presence. Because Pete never does.

Anyway, Pete says, “You’re a good dad, too.”

Patrick looks at him, surprised.

“In case you were wondering,” Pete adds.

Patrick flushes in that way he has, embarrassed by praise, red at the tips of his ears and over his pretty cheekbones. He says, “I’m not…you know…his dad.”

“Patrick,” Pete says, with infinitely loving patience.

“You did all the work. I came in when you were almost done to, like, spoil him, that’s all I did.”

Pete brays laughter and Patrick gives him a bewildered look. “Patrick, you’re the fucking disciplinarian in this family, Tennyson sends me in to _handle_ you when he wants to do something sketchy, you do not spoil him.”

Patrick frowns a little. “Well. That’s not what I mean to do. I don’t want to be the _bad_ parent.”

“No.” Pete shakes his head. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m doing a bad job with this, hang on.” He takes the bowl of ice cream out of Patrick’s hands and puts it on the coffee table so he can straddle his lap. “What I’m trying to say is, you made it sound like I did this all by myself, and I didn’t. I mean, I never did, there was always Uncle Joe and Uncle Andy and there was always _you_. His Patrick. The whole entire time. We relied on you like _crazy_ , and I never said it out loud, I never acknowledged it, but you’ve been a great co-parent, Patrick, thank you. You’ve been fucking fantastic. And for every moment when you think he’s just like me, there’s a moment when I think he’s just like you. Because you’re his dad. We’re his dads.” Pete lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug and plays with the collar of Patrick’s t-shirt. “And, I don’t know, I guess we’re not that bad at it.”

“That’s…” Patrick trails off, sucks in a breath, looks like he has no idea what to say.

Pete takes pity on him and kisses him sweetly. “Thanks, Trick. Thanks from me, and thanks from our kid.”

Patrick takes another deep breath. Then he says, “Okay, but he gets the know-it-all-ness from you.”

Pete laughs and lets him lighten the tone. “You know, you’re kind of a know-it-all, too.”

“Hmm. Maybe,” Patrick allows, a hand warm on the back of Pete’s neck.

“‘Pete, this is a new instrument I just had delivered, it’s called a glockenspiel, I took one look at it and knew immediately how to play the next big glockenspiel hit for the airwaves, listen.’”

“Shut up,” Patrick says good-naturedly.

“Make me,” Pete says.

It’s better than porn.

_I’ve got you_ , Pete thinks. _It’s going to be okay_.


End file.
